“Screw it, let´s do it” – Book Review
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in Books, Business on November 14th, 2009
Author: Sir Richard Branson
I do believe that almost everyone in the world has heard of Sir Richard Branson or at least the Virgin brand. You might hate the man or love him, but the truth is that he´s one of a kind.
When I first saw the book “Screw it, let´s do it” I felt compelled to buy it, but reason told me to read its synopsis first. Although you may think that I have changed my mind about buying this book, you are wrong! Reading the synopsis increased my level of curiosity about it.
I read this book in a couple of days and I thought it´s a fantastic book. Sir Richard Branson is able to capture your attention and get you motivated to achieve your goals.
The message that the book tries to pass the reader is that one must do things for fun and not for money. As strange as this may seem, I do think this is an undeniable truth. We don’t want to feel miserables every day of our lives just for the sake of money. That is too much of a price to pay!
As we go through some of Richard Branson’s life episodes, he tries to explain some important business lessons that has made him one of the most riches men on Earth.
“Screw it, let’s do it” is no doubt a must read book.
Buy “Screw it, let’s do it” from BookDepository and get free shipping world wide.
Book Description
In 1968, a young man named Richard Branson began an improbable journey. From opening a tiny record store, called Virgin Records, on the second floor of a building in London, Richard went on to become the head of one of the world’s most universally recognized and respected groups of companies. The Virgin name has become a truly global brand and Richard its charismatic public face. His story is awe-inspiring, breathtaking, and often just plain fun. From airlines to mobile phones, round-the-world balloon flights to space travel, a Caribbean island and a South African game reserve, it’s clear that Richard Branson is having the time of his life. Some people say that everything Richard touches turns to gold. But the truth is, behind the fun-loving persona lies a dedicated and dynamic businessman who has sweated buckets for every dollar he’s made. He has taken his share of falls, just like all of us, and picked himself up and gotten right back into the game. And throughout it all—working, succeeding, failing, trying again—Richard Branson has indeed been having fun. He hasn’t done it all alone. He has learned from and been inspired by many remarkable people, from politicians, scientists, writers, and co-workers to his own mother and father. Screw It, Let’s Do It shares some of Richard Branson’s lessons in life and business that range from good, practical advice to more esoteric inspirations—all of which have made the head of Virgin Group what he is today, including:
Just do it—Believe whatever you want to achieve can be achieved.
Have fun—Have a positive outlook, and when something stops being fun, move on.
Be innovative—The system is not sacred:Think creatively.
Have sex appeal—Create excitement in everything you do.
Do some good—Change the world, even in a small way.
It’s hard to read about his journey and not catch his motivational bug and zest for life—to act positively, to change for the better and join him in his enthusiastic and life-affirming visions for the world. Screw It, Let’s Do It also presents Branson’s vision for the future, a future in which we each fully embrace the responsibility to do no harm to our environment, to hold our hands out to those in need, to work in unity for the great and pressing concerns of our time. It’s up to successful companies may like Virgin to lead the way in a more socially responsible—and in fact, wholly revolutionary—approach to business.
Engaging, funny, utterly absorbing, and above all, inspiring, Screw It, Let’s Do It serves as a template for personal and business growth, a guidebook for anyone who wants to grab life by the horns and take a wonderful ride, living—as Richard Branson surely does— life to its very fullest.
Buy “Screw it, let’s do it” from BookDepository and get free shipping world wide.
Notice: Undefined index: message in /home/example.php on line 9
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in PHP on September 28th, 2009
If you’re getting this message on PHP this is due to your PHP error reporting settings not being set correctly.
You can suppress the Notice warnings by changing the error reporting settings on PHP.ini (permanent change) or adding an extra line to your PHP script.
Changing PHP.ini:
Changing your PHP.ini makes the change permanent and available to every PHP script you run.
- Edit your PHP.ini file
- Locate the line that has error_reporting without the ; in the beginning (ex: error_reporting = E_ALL)
- Change this to error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE
- Save PHP.ini
Adding line to your script:
Just add the following line to the beginning of your script:
error_reporting (E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);
Explanation:
error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE tells the system to show all errors and warnings except those for notices.
phpMyAdmin root with no password message
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in PhpMyAdmin, WAMP on September 17th, 2009
After installing WAMP Server it is common when you first access phpMyAdmin to get the following message:
“Your configuration file contains settings (root with no password) that correspond to the default MySQL privileged account. Your MySQL server is running with this default, is open to intrusion, and you really should fix this security hole by setting a password for user ‘.root’.”
To correct this security issue you need to do the following:
- Go to phpMyAdmin
- Select the Privileges tab
- Locate the user “root” that has localhost for a host
- Edit the root user privileges by clicking on the corresponding Edit Privileges button
- On the Change Password section insert the desired password and press Go
- You should now have at the top of the screen the message: “The password for ‘root’@'localhost’ was changed successfully.“
- Now you need to edit file config.inc.php normally located at C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin3.2.0.1 (note that the version indication may vary)
- Locate $cfg['Servers'][$i]['auth_type'] = ‘config’; and change from config to cookie so that you get a login window every time you access phpMyAdmin
- Locate $cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ‘ ‘; line. If you don’t have one add it to your config.inc.php file
- Add a secret passphrase to $cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ‘ ‘; for example: $cfg['blowfish_secret'] = ‘secret_pass’;
- Save your changes
- Go to the WAMPServer and select Restart All Services
- Once all the services have been restarted go to phpMyAdmin and enter the username root and your password to access phpMyAmdin
Notes:
- The blowfish_secret passphrase should not be the same as the root password.
- If you don’t add a $cfg['blowfish_secret'] line to the config.inc.php file, when you access phpMyAdmin you’ll get the message: “The configuration file now needs a secret passphrase (blowfish_secret).“
If you’re interested in learning more about PhpMyAdmin then check out the book “Mastering PhpMydmin for Effective MySQL Management“.
Move a dataset that is in Linklist to a different volume
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in MVS on August 27th, 2009
Sometimes we come across the need of moving to a different volume a dataset that is in Linklist.
We must remember that moving a dataset does not change the list of datasets defined to the current concatenation in any way – the dataset name remains the same -. The system will continue to use the current Linklist set as is and will not rebuild the concatenation.
To make a change to any dataset (ex: move) that is part of an active linklist set, you have to first remove it from the linklist set. When it is no longer part of an active concatenation, then you can modify it as you like and then add it back in.
So, in order to move a Linklisted dataset to a different volume you would have to:
1. Define a new linklist set without the dataset you wish to recatalog.
2. Activate/implement it.
3. Move your dataset.
4. Define a linklist set with the dataset you’ve moved.
5. Activate/implement this new set.
Here’s an example of the commands you would use:
1. P LLA
2. SETPROG LNKLST,UNALLOCATE
3. Create a PROGT1 containing the LINKLIST members EXCEPT the one we want to move and rename LNKLST0x to LNKLST0x + 1
4. SET PROG=T1
5. SETPROG LNKLST,UPDATE,JOBNAME=*
6. Move the dataset into a different volume.
7. Create a PROGT2 containing the LINKLIST members INCLUDING the one we’ve moved to a different volume and increment the LNKLSTxx value (LNKLST0x + 1).
8. SET PROG=T2
9. S LLA,SUB=MSTR
10. SETPROG LNKLST,ALLOCATE
11. SETPROG LNKLST,UPDATE,JOBNAME=*
Here’s a practical example:
Current Linklist set: LNKLST00
Dataset name: SYS2.MOVE.EXAMPLE
Original volume: TST001
Destination volume: TST002
Current PROGxx: PROGT0
Commands:
- P LLA
- SETPROG LNKLST,UNALLOCATE
- Create a PROGT1 containing all the LINKLIST datasets with the exception of SYS2.MOVE.EXAMPLE, and rename all instances of LNKLST00 to LNKLST01.
- SET PROG=T1
- SETPROG LNKLST,UPDATE,JOBNAME=*
- Move dataset SYS2.MOVE.EXAMPLE from volume TST001 to volume TST002.
- Create a PROGT2 containing all the LINKLIST datasets including SYS2.MOVE.EXAMPLES and rename all instances of LNKLST01 to LNKLST02.
- SET PROG=T2
- S LLA,SUB=MSTR
- SETPROG LNKLST,ALLOCATE
- SETPROG LNKLST,UPDATE,JOBNAME=*
Linklist update – Why we need to stop LLA and unallocate the LNKLST
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in MVS on August 26th, 2009
A couple of months ago I’ve written a post on how to dynamically update the Linklist but some questions have been risen on why we need to stop the LLA and unallocate the Linklist.
Each Linklist dataset has an ENQ from both XCFAS and LLA. An ENQ on a LNKLST dataset prevents that dataset from being altered as long as it is a member of an active LNKLST. So, in order to be able to make changes to the active Linklist you first need to remove those ENQs.
To be able to remove the LLA ENQs you need to stop the LLA. The only impact that stopping the LLA has in the system is loss of performance until you re-start the LLA.
As per the XCFAS ENQs to remove them you need to issue the SETPROG LNKLST UNALLOCATE command. Unallocate indicates that you want to undo all existing allocations obtained while processing active LNKLST sets.
Once you remove the ENQs you are then able to change the Linklist. Now, bear in mind that although you have removed the ENQs the modules are still in Linklist. No abend will come out of this.
Once you are finished with the Linklist changes, you then restart the LLA and ALLOCATE the Linklist.
The UPDATE command indicates that the system is to update an address space so that a specified job or jobs associated with that space can use the current LNKLST set. If the job is using another LNKLST set when the current LNKLST set is activated, it will continue to use the original LNKLST set until it completes operations. When the job completes and restarts, it then uses the datasets defined in the new currently active LNKLST set.
Displaying Page Dataset Information
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in MVS on August 20th, 2009
As you may know, Page datasets are defined on the IEASYSxx member of the Parmlib but if you want to avoid the hassle of checking this member or if you would like to obtain more information about them, you can use the following MVS commands to display Page Dataset information:
1. Command: /D ASM
Displays information about the page data sets the system is currently using and the status of the PAGEDEL command.
Example:
RESPONSE=TST1
IEE200I 08.14.54 DISPLAY ASM 182
TYPE FULL STAT DEV DATASET NAME
PLPA 28% OK 8833 SYS1.TST1.PAGE.PLPA
COMMON 0% OK 863B SYS1.TST1.PAGE.COMMON
LOCAL 1% OK 880E SYS1.TST1.PAGE.LOCAL1
LOCAL 2% OK 880F SYS1.TST1.PAGE.LOCAL2
PAGEDEL COMMAND IS NOT ACTIVE
2. Command: /D ASM,PLPA
Displays information about the PLPA page data set.
Example:
RESPONSE=TST1
IEE200I 08.19.40 DISPLAY ASM 236
TYPE FULL STAT DEV DATASET NAME
PLPA 28% OK 8833 SYS1.TST1.PAGE.PLPA
VOLSER DEVTYP SIZE USED AVAIL ERRORS
TST1P1 3390 53,999 15,508 38,491 0
3. Command: /D ASM,LOCAL
Displays information about all local page data sets.
Example:
RESPONSE=TST1
IEE200I 08.23.00 DISPLAY ASM 264
TYPE FULL STAT DEV DATASET NAME
LOCAL 1% OK 880E SYS1.TST1.PAGE.LOCAL1
LOCAL 2% OK 880F SYS1.TST1.PAGE.LOCAL2
4. Command: /D ASM,COMMON
Displays information about the common page data set.
Example:
RESPONSE=TST1
IEE200I 08.28.25 DISPLAY ASM 305
TYPE FULL STAT DEV DATASET NAME
COMMON 0% OK 863B SYS1.TST1.PAGE.COMMON
VOLSER DEVTYP SIZE USED AVAIL ERRORS
TST1P0 3390 89,999 42 89,957 0
5. Command: /D ASM,PAGE=page_dataset_name
Displays information about page data sets.
Example:
page_dataset_name = SYS1.TST1.PAGE.LOCAL1
/D ASM,PAGE=SYS1.TST1.PAGE.LOCAL1
Returns:
RESPONSE=TST1
IEE200I 08.31.01 DISPLAY ASM 328
TYPE FULL STAT DEV DATASET NAME
LOCAL 1% OK 880E SYS1.TST1.PAGE.LOCAL1
VOLSER DEVTYP SIZE USED AVAIL ERRORS
TST1P2 3390 599,399 11,242 588,157 0
How to display the Linklist concatenation
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in MVS on August 19th, 2009
Whoever works with mainframes knows that to be able to o know what the Linklist concatenation is is one of the most important things in the job.
There is a very simple MVS command for the effect:
D PROG,LNKLST
Here’s an example of what this command returns:
RESPONSE=TST1
CSV470I 12.29.52 LNKLST DISPLAY 888
LNKLST SET LNKLST01 LNKAUTH=LNKLST
ENTRY APF VOLUME DSNAME
1 A TST1R1 SYS2.LINKLIB
2 A TST1R1 SYS1.MIGLIB
3 A TST1R1 SYS1.CSSLIB
4 A TST1R1 SYS2.LINKLIB
5 A TST1R1 SYS1.LINKLIB
6 TST1R1 SYS1.SORTLIB
...
Explanation:
TST1 is the LPAR name
LNKLST01 indicates the Linklist set currently active and in use by the system
A indicates that the dataset is also in APF list
TST1R1 indicates the volume where the dataset is allocated
Note:
The Linklist concatenation is defined in the PROGxx member of the PARMLIB.
Unmounting a file system with the Remount parameter
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in USS on August 19th, 2009
UNMOUNT FILESYSTEM(SYS2.OMVS.EXAMPLE) REMOUNT
We all know that the UNMOUNT command removes a file system from the file system hierarchy but when we use the REMOUNT parameter with the UNMOUNT command we may be introducing confusion in some minds.
Unmounting a file system and remounting it? Makes no sense?
Well that may be so, but in fact if we look at what the REMOUNT parameter does it makes perfect sense.
In fact, the REMOUNT parameter tells the system that after the unmount is completed the system should mount the file system again but this time changing its mount mode. That is, if the file system was in READ only mode, then it should be remounted with READ/WRITE mode or if the file system was mounted with READ/WRITE mode, then it should be remounted with READ only mode.
Example 1:
File system name: SYS2.OMVS.EXAMPLE
Mount mode: RDWR (Read/Write mode)
When we issue the command UNMOUNT FILESYSTEM(SYS2.OMVS.EXAMPLE) REMOUNT we tell the system that we wish to change the mount mode of the file system to READ only mode. The system then unmounts the file system and remounts it with READ only mode.
Example 2:
File system name: SYS2.OMVS.EXAMPLE
Mount mode: READ
When we issue the command UNMOUNT FILESYSTEM(SYS2.OMVS.EXAMPLE) REMOUNT we tell the system that we wish to change the mount mode of the file system to READ/WRITE (RDWR) mode. The system then unmounts the file system and remounts it with READ/WRITE mode.
MVS command to change the state of an Exit routine
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in MVS on August 19th, 2009
Sometimes we find it necessary either to inactivate an active exit routine or the other way around. In order to achieve this, we need to use the MVS command:
/SETPROG EXIT,MODIFY,EXITNAME=exit_name,MODNAME=mod_name,STATE=active_inactive
Example:
/SETPROG EXIT,MODIFY,EXITNAME=SYS.IEFACTRT,MODNAME=IEFACTRT,STATE=INACTIVE
Other parameters:
JOBNAME=jobname – The job(s) name(s) for which this exit routine is to get control. If some other job calls the exit, this exit routine does not get control. The default value is * which means all the jobs. The default for the MODIFY parameter is to leave the jobname unchanged.
MVS command to Add an Exit routine to an Exit
Posted by Rui Miguel Feio in MVS on August 19th, 2009
When you require to add an exit routine to an exit you may use the most simple form of the Add command:
/SETPROG EXIT,ADD,EXITNAME=exit_name,MODNAME=mod_name,DSNAME=dsname
Example:
exit_name = SYS.IEFACTRT
mod_name = IEFACTRT
dsname = SYS2.LINKLIB.TST1
/SETPROG EXIT,ADD,EXITNAME=SYS.IEFACTRT,MODNAME=IEFACTRT,DSNAME=SYS2.TST1.LINKLIB
Other parameters:
When adding an Exit routine to an Exit you may also have the need to use one or more of the following parameters:
STATE=active_inactive - Indicates the state of the exit routine. ACTIVE is the default value.
JOBNAME=jobname – The job(s) name(s) for which this exit routine is to get control. If some other job calls the exit, this exit routine does not get control. The default value is * which means all the jobs.
ABENDNUM=(n[,CONSEC]) – indicates that the exit routine is not to be given control after the n abends occur. CONSEC indicates that there must be n consecutive abends before the system stops giving control to the exit routine.
FIRST – Specifies that the system is to call the exit routine before all other exit routines associated with this exit, unless another exit routine, added after it, also specifies FIRST.
LAST - Specifies that the system is to call the exit routine after all other exit routines associated with this exit, unless other exit routines are added after it.
Examples:
/SETPROG EXIT,ADD,EX=SYS.IEFU83,MOD=CYN1FU83,DSN=CYN.SCYNAUTH,FIRST
/SETPROG EXIT,ADD,EX=SYS.IEFU83,MOD=CYN1FU83,DSN=CYN.SCYNAUTH,FIRST,STATE=INACTIVE
/SETPROG EXIT,ADD,EX=SYSSTC.IEFACTRT,MOD=IEFACTRT,ABENDNUM=(5)
/SETPROG EXIT,ADD,EX=SYSSTC.IEFACTRT,MOD=IEFACTRT,ABENDNUM=(5,CONSEC)